"How is it going on here?" he asked.
"Badly enough, in a quiet way. You had better go and see for yourself."
He went out, walking from room to room, through the yards and wherever men were at work. Here and there a place was vacant. Where the work went on, it went on dully; he saw dogged faces and subdued ones; those who looked up as he passed wore an almost deprecatory air; those who did not look up at all, bent over their tasks with an expression which was at least negatively defiant. His keen eye discovered favorable symptoms, however; those who were in evil mood were his worst workmen—men who had their off days of drunken stupor and idleness, and the heads of departments were plainly making an effort to stir briskly and ignore the presence of any cloud upon their labor.
By the time he had made the rounds he had grasped the situation fully. The strait was desperate, but not as bad as it might have been.
"I may hold 'em," he said to himself, between his teeth. "And by the Lord Harry I'll try hard for it."
He went over to the bank and found Ffrench in his private room, pale and out of all courage.
"There will be a run on us by this time to-morrow," he said. "I see signs of it already."
"Will there?" said Ha worth. "We'll see about that. Wait a bit, my lad!"
He went into the town and spent an hour or so taking a sharp lookout. Nothing escaped him. There were more idlers than usual about the ale houses, and more than once he passed two or three women talking together with anxious faces and in undertones. As he was passing one such group one of the women saw him and started.
